Directionally challenged

After months of saying "up" for both climbing up and climbing down things, Margot has switched to using "down" all the time (pronounced "gow!"). This led to special frustration tonight when Adam was holding her, but she wanted to be held by me so she plaintively cried "gow!" and then was super frustrated to find herself held by no one. Ahh, the frustrations of learning!

For all her fans out there, here is Margot being unimpressed with a chocolate cookie sandwich from Hi Rise in Harvard Square. There's no accounting for taste.

Don't get used to it, Dad!

It seems worth documenting, since it probably won't happen again.

Margot has just indicated that she actually listened to something her father said to her.

With the cold weather, our heat is on, so the radiators get hot. We've been trying to teach Margot not to touch them so that she won't hurt herself. This morning, Adam pointed at the radiator, said "hot", and told Margot not to touch it. But, he says lots of things to her, so I didn't think too much of it.

Fast forward to this afternoon. While Margot and I were upstairs, she pointed to a radiator, looked at me and said "hot!" The look on her face was a mingling of stern in the touch-that-and-you'll-be-sorry way and educational as if she were talking to someone to whom she expected to need to explain things a few times. This was an awesome moment for showing how quickly she's learning new things as well as showing how low her expectations are of my ability to do the same thing. Believe me when I say entirely without irony that parenthood is amazing!

Glamour Shot

While I'm at it, here's one more recent shot of the car, in summer mode. I'll post something from a past or oncoming winter in the next month or three, to give you an idea of the difference a few months makes.

Onset of Autumn - more pics

Sad Days of Autumn

I love autumn in New England - crisp, clear days; slanting light; changing foliage; wood smoke on the breeze. However, for those of us who also love certain convertible, front-engine/rear-wheel-drive modes of transportation, there are sad days in the fall - like the first real frost telling us that soon we'll have to live through another five-plus months of keeping our heads inside the windows, so to speak.

Last week one morning I found the calling cards of cold-weather-driving on my soft-top: frost and fallen leaves. I think the end is near.

(Technical notes: you're not supposed to move the Miata's soft-top when the temperature is less than 45 or 50 degrees - the vinyl gets brittle in the cold and can crack. The soft-top is permanently attached to the car, but for the winter I fold it back into the open position and use a detachable hard-top with better headroom and heat retention, and a significantly larger rear window. I also put on snow tires on dedicated steel winter wheels, which improves my chances in snow and ice to "possibility of survival", and lets me use dedicated performance tires in the summer instead of all-seasons.)

(Procrastinatory note: last year I tried to squeak by on one too many "last nice days", and only got to put on the hard-top and snow tires on the first weekend of January in an unseasonable 60 degrees.)